A local film documenting firsthand stories from survivors of the “Thousand Year Flood” will be aired on PBS North Coast/KEET-TV on Thursday at 7 p.m..

The film, titled “High Water Mark: Stories from the ’64 Flood,” highlights the experiences of men, women and children who remember the flood as if it had happened yesterday, Jennifer Bell, the director and co-producer of the film said.

With over a half a century having passed since the flood occurred, Bell knew how important it was to document the stories from people who had survived this catastrophic event.

“We interviewed people all over Humboldt County,” she said. “The memories are so close for them; it’s not like they vaguely remember it — when they tell their stories, they’re back there instantly and they’re reliving it.”

It has been over 50 years since the flood of 1964, which took 29 lives and caused more than $190 million in damage to the North Coast, according to the state Department of Water Resources. Around 2,400 residences, 400 small businesses, and over 1,100 farm buildings were destroyed. Almost 8,000 families suffered losses in the region.

The flood was caused by a combination of weather which caused large amounts of snowfall followed by warm rains which melted the snow, overwhelming local watersheds in hours. Over the course of three days, the flood wreaked havoc across the state. A total of 34 counties were declared disaster areas, with Humboldt, Del Norte, Mendocino, Siskiyou, Trinity and Sonoma counties suffering more damage than the rest combined.

While oftentimes first responders and other emergency personnel are featured in films like this, Bell said she intentionally reached beyond those figures to capture the experiences of everyday people. About 60 people were interviewed for the film, she said.

The namesake of the film comes from the high water sign by U.S. Highway 101 that marks where the water level reached during the flood in Piercy, she said.

“Everyone has driven past the high water sign,” she said.

But perhaps not everyone has stopped to think about what that sign means, and what it represents for the people who lived through the flood, she said. A big question Bell had was how such a catastrophic event resulted in a relatively small number of casualties. Her summation is that Humboldt County is filled with people who work with their hands and are no stranger to on-the-fly problem-solving.

“Support your local farmers and ranchers and fishermen,” she said. “We need those industries because we need those people.”

Bell also emphasized the importance of public stations like KEET, which helped her with the process of making her film available for public broadcast. One of the hurdles Bell encountered was the requirement for her film to have closed captioning, which was an expensive addition — one that kept the film, which was completed in 2015, from being aired for years.

The McLane Foundation contributed part of the funding to overcome this hurdle, along with KEET. As a way to raise funds for KEET, the broadcast of the film will be incorporated into a fundraising drive for the station. Bell said the effort will hopefully result in the ability for KEET to help produce more programs about local stories like the High Water Mark.

Jerry Rhode, a local historian, also helped with the film. Rhode said he helped provide background information to tie everything together and assisted Bell with finding people to interview.

The film engages with a sometimes undiscussed contributor to the flood, which was timber harvesting, he said.

“It’s important documentation of what happens in our local environment,” he said. “Intensive logging taking place over the last 20 years contributed to the intensity of the flood.”

The flood was a harsh lesson in that regard, and contributed to a greater awareness about the effects of the logging practices used at that time, he said.

“I think it’s a great film,” he said. “It’s a real tribute to Jennifer and the others that she created such a high-quality product with limited resources.”